My Granny, The Lunch Lady!

Do All the Recipes Include “Love”?

Lille Hattie Walters Goddard buried her husband after his short but painful pancreatic cancer battle.  He was 57; she was 50 years old.  She had worked hard her entire life but never had a paying job.  That’s if you don’t count baking fried pies for the church.  The preacher at her funeral 32 years later mentioned her fundraising pies for the Assembly of God church in San Angelo.  Her husband, Arnold Goddard, had been a determined, driven man with a variety of  jobs that included building water windmills over all over West Texas, running a gas station in Blanket, Texas, and eventually keep grounds at an oil pipeline company in Midland.
When he was buried, Lille, had no experience, was fifty years old and was scared beyond measure.
She assessed her talents and found that one thing at which she was extremely good:  preparing meals.  She applied and accepted a job at Midland ISD at the June Young Elementary School.  This was during the day of making homemade rolls from scratch, no processed foods, no frozen foods or canned vegetables and milk in glass bottles.  She later moved to Stephenville and was a dining hall employee, both in the main dining hall and the athletic dorm for Tarleton State College.
Lillie (Granny to all us grandchildren) wore the whitest starched uniform, white knee-high hose and white nurses shoes—and that ever present hairnet.  Once a troubled person followed Granny home from work and begged her to help her with her drug problem.  Granny asked how could she help and the poor soul said, “You are a nurse.  I see you dressed that way every day.”
I am proud of my grandmother and the legacy of providing good food to students. Certainly, I am not ashamed of her—she worked hard to be eligible for a pension and made a positive impact in the lives of students.  I never made fun of the cafeteria workers throughout my years in school but admit I took my lunch to school in Snoopy, Wild, Wild West, and Man from UNCLE lunch boxes—more to look cool than for the nutritional value of their contents.